They should get the job finished within a few days.
4.131 In and within are also used to show that something only took or takes a short time.
The clouds evaporated in seconds.
What an expert can do in minutes may take you hours to accomplish.
Within a few months, the barnyard had been abandoned.
for and in with general or specific time
4.132 For and in can be used in negative statements to say that something does not happen during a period of time. You can use them in this way with specific units of time, and with more general time references.
He hadn’t had a proper night’s sleep for a month.
I haven’t seen a chart for forty years!
The team had not heard from Stabler in a month.
He hasn’t slept in a month.
I haven’t seen him for years.
Let’s have a dinner party. We haven’t had one in years.
I haven’t fired a gun in years.
noun phrases that express duration
4.133 Note that with the verbs last, wait, and stay, which have duration as part of their meaning, the adverbial can be a noun phrase instead of a prepositional phrase with for.
The campaign lasts four weeks at most.
His speech lasted for exactly 14 and a half minutes. ‘Wait a minute,’ the voice said.
He stayed a month, five weeks, six weeks.
The verbs take and spend can also indicate duration but the adverbial can only be a noun phrase.
It took me a month to lose that feeling of being a spectator.
What once took a century now took only ten months.
He spent five minutes washing and shaving.
approximate duration
4.134 If you want to be less precise about how long something lasts, you can use one of the following words or expressions: about, almost, nearly, around, more than, less than, and so on.
They’ve lived there for more than thirty years.
They have not been allowed to form unions for almost a decade.
The three of us travelled around together for about a month that summer.
In less than a year, I learned enough Latin to pass the entrance exam.
He had been in command of HMS Churchill for nearly a year.
When you make a general statement about the duration of something, you can indicate the maximum period of time that it will last or take by using up to.
Refresher training for up to one month each year was the rule for all.
You can also use expressions such as or so, or more, or less, and or thereabouts to make the duration less specific.
He has been writing about tennis and golf for forty years or so.
Our species probably practised it for a million years or more. …hopes which have prevailed so strongly for a century or more.
Almost, about, nearly, and thereabouts are also used when talking about when an event takes place; see paragraph 4.100 for details of this.
Talking about the whole of a period
4.135 If you want to emphasize that something lasts for the whole of a period of time, you can use all as a determiner with many general time words.
‘I’ve been wanting to do this all day,’ she said.
I’ve been here all night.
They said you were out all afternoon.
We’ve not seen them all summer.
You can also use whole as a modifier in front of a general time word.
It took me the whole of my first year to adjust. …scientists who are monitoring food safety the whole time. …people who have not worked for a whole year.
You can also use all through, right through, and throughout with the and many general time words, or with a specific decade, year, month, or special period.
Discussions and arguments continued all through the day.
Right through the summer months they are rarely out of sight.
Throughout the Sixties, man’s first voyage to other worlds came closer.
Words referring to events are sometimes used instead of the time words to emphasize that something happened for the entire duration of the event.
He wore an expression of angry contempt throughout the interrogation.
A patient reported a dream that had recurred throughout her life.
All through the cruelly long journey home, he lay utterly motionless.
4.136 If you want to emphasize that something happens all the time, you can list periods of the day or seasons of the year, or mention contrasting ones.
…people coming in morning, noon, and night.
I’ve worn the same suit summer, winter, autumn and spring, for five years.
Thousands of slave labourers worked night and day to build the fortifications.
Ten gardeners used to work this land, winter and summer.
Each family was filmed 24/7 for six weeks.
24/7 is an abbreviation of 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It is used in informal English and in journalism.
Showing the start or end of a period
start time
4.137 You can also show how long a situation lasts by using prepositional phrases to give the time when it begins or the time when it ends, or both.
If you want to talk about a situation that began in the past and is continuing now, or to consider a period of it from a time in the past to the present, you use the preposition since with a time adverbial or an event to show when the situation began. The verb is in the present perfect.
I’ve been here since twelve o’clock.
I haven’t had a new customer in here since Sunday.
Since January, there hasn’t been any more trouble.